


Lay Down With Me

by Sarahtoo



Series: The Power of the Feminine [2]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5463854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahtoo/pseuds/Sarahtoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My playlist queued up Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” and my mind decided that, wrong era or not, this was an excellent basis for a story about Concetta. And Jack, but mostly Concetta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay Down With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story came out of the Concetta section of [The Education of Jack Robinson](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5392814). I wanted to see Concetta's side of that story.

Concetta knew when she took Gianni to her bed for the first time that he did not love her. She hadn’t minded, though—at the time, she hadn’t loved him either. She had liked his handsome face and his strong body, and she had admired his drive in his work and his determination to keep his honor intact. Gianni was a good man, an honorable man, so different from her first husband as to be almost a different species. She had hoped that, given time, they would come to love each other, and she would have a second marriage that was considerably happier than her first.

So she had taken Gianni to her bed on a night when he’d come to her dinner table carrying a hurt that seemed to cut him to the bone. When he had finished his dinner—Gianni loved her food—she had led him up the stairs to her bedroom and had soothed him with her body, letting him touch and kiss her and finding herself surprised by the pleasure he gave her. Her husband had never given her pleasure during marital relations—he had been too focused on his own release to consider hers. But Gianni had stroked her carefully, had used his mouth on her most sensitive parts, and had held her when she shattered, sobbing, before he even entered her body. He had pulled out of her to spend—even in that moment of release, he was protective.

In the months that had followed that first encounter, Gianni had come to dinner at the restaurant two or three times a week, as had become his habit. He had learned to come at the end of the night, so that she could sit down with him, and they would talk as they ate. He listened to her opinions as if he believed that she had important things to say, which was almost as great a pleasure to Concetta as what he brought to her body. Those conversations were climaxes for her soul. On most of those nights, if they could escape the watchful eye of her grandfather, they would finish the evening in her bed. He taught her that her body was meant for pleasure, and that she deserved that pleasure. He showed her how to touch him and, to her surprise, how to touch herself. And little by little, stroke by stroke and conversation by conversation, Concetta had slid into love with her Gianni until she could hardly remember a time when she was not.

Concetta’s hope that Gianni would learn to love her back remained strong, even when he came to her restaurant to ask about the murder of Nonna Louisa Carbone, and the woman had come bursting in to warn Gianni about Guido Carbone’s gun. She noticed, though, that there was something between her Gianni and that woman. He had not touched the woman, had not called her by her Christian name as one does with those with whom they are close, but there was a familiarity between them that Concetta could not help but see. She found herself touching Gianni more overtly than she normally would, smoothing his coat over his shoulders and taking his hand as he rushed out the door, and she was glad when the woman noticed.

Later, when the woman returned, glamorous and beautiful in her evening gown, Concetta had welcomed her to the family table. Her questions about Gianni were not subtle, though Concetta got the idea that she could be subtle if she chose to. So Concetta did her best to be unsubtle about her replies without admitting in front of her grandfather that Gianni was her lover. When the woman—Phryne Fisher—left, Concetta was surprised to realize that she’d liked her. Miss Fisher was smart and funny in addition to being so very beautiful. Concetta could see why Gianni cared for her, and Concetta could not hate Miss Fisher just because she had a claim on the heart of the man Concetta loved.

After that meeting, Concetta began to lose hope for a future with Gianni. She hoped that she was wrong, that Gianni did love her the way that she loved him, so she built up her courage to offer all of herself to him, making it clear that if he wanted her to, she would marry him and forsake her family to be an upstanding policeman’s wife. She took him to her bed and wordlessly poured out her heart to him through the vessel of her body, using her mouth and her hands to pleasure him before taking him inside her. And Gianni reciprocated, but she could tell that what he was feeling was not the passionate love that she wanted in her husband. He cared for her, she knew, but it was not enough. She managed to keep her tears in check until he had dressed and kissed her one last time, but as soon as the door closed behind him, she wept.

When Gianni came to her after the arrests of Roberto Salvatore and Mariana Carbone, she could see in his face what his answer to her offer would be. He tried to hedge around it, and she almost thought that he would accept, if only because he was an honorable man. But Concetta wanted him to want her, needed him to need her. So she tested him one last time, and although his kiss was as sweet as it had ever been, his heart wasn’t in it, not even as much as it had been throughout their affair. Something had changed for him, and she knew that this would be goodbye, at least to Gianni the lover. She hoped that, in time, he would go back to being Gianni her friend, but she would have to take her time before she would be able to look at him without yearning for more.

She knew that her smile was melancholy when she pulled away from his kiss, her hand still stroking his face. She rested her forehead against his as she said the words that put an end to her dream of a life with this man. “Your heart is taken.” Such a good man—he tried to protest, to tell her that he cared for her, that she deserved to be happy—but not the man for her, as much as she wanted him to be. With one last stroke of his lapels, she gave up the fight for Gianni’s heart, surrendering the field to the woman he’d chosen. She gave his hands a final squeeze and whispered a goodbye, standing to gather their dishes to take them to the kitchen. When she returned, he was gone.

Concetta sank into the chair he’d so recently vacated, rolling her lips together as if she could still taste his kiss, but her eyes were dry. She had meant what she told him, that she would be fine, and that the next time she married it would be for love. It might take her some time, but she would make good on both of those promises. With a decisive nod, she rose to lock the door and finish the clearing away. She would sleep on it, and tomorrow she’d take the first steps toward the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don’t know this song, here are the [lyrics](https://play.google.com/music/preview/Ttxfas6zqxargxkk2i6qegdzhnu?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics) and a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9Cu6GYqxo).


End file.
